THE FOLLY OF MAN’S WISDOM

Sir,

Someone once wisely observed that we are swimming in an ocean of information but drowning in ignorance. Our ignorance makes us to even despise and dispute our Creator. Our focus is on the tangibles of life, and we are insensitive to the invisible and spiritual things. We are ignorant of the fact that the real things of life are spiritual and that power and all invisible things come from within.

The interesting thing is that we don’t know that we do not know. In fact, I am reminded of Donald Rumsfeld, who spoke about the realms of ‘known,’ ‘unknown’ and the ‘unknowable.’
Rumsfeld said: “There are known knows. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

Socrates was also right and mature, just like Confucius, the Chinese thinker and educator, arguably the founder of Chinese thought, who, though he was hailed for his knowledge and wisdom, came to this conclusion that he was ignorant. Confucius said to know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is real knowledge.
But ours is a generation of men and women who claim to have it all, or behave as if we know it all. We are a bunch of egoists who are devoid of true knowledge, and that is because we are content with Vanity Fair, depriving us knowing who we really are and the whys of our existence. Just because one is a rich, renowned and celebrated engineer, doctor, lawyer, accountant, judge with intellectual prowess, we are still nothing without the Creator.

Intellectualism

Unfortunately we are getting more intimate with intellectualism. The way of the intellectuals is cleverness. The clever ones are the bearers of earthly wisdom, without the wisdom of God. Like the ancient Jewish rabbis, we seek proof before exercising faith. We are a generation scientifically inclined, but not spiritually inclined. We want empirical data before we can believe or act. Such a mindset makes us despisers of that which is good and of God. We end up focusing on how we look on the outside (and that what finds meaning in our lives), instead of focusing within, that is, focusing on being good people.

The way we live today is as if we know better than God. We have left our Creator to His own design and focused on our own design – a very tragic way of living. And a stern warning and reminder comes from our Creator, reminding us who we are and what position we occupy in this universe. Hopefully we will be awakened by these sobering words from Deity: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,” Isaiah 55:8-9.

We can never be equally knowledgeable and wise as God is in our fallen world. For water does not flow up stream. In order for us to drink from the fountain of life, we ought to take our proper position, that is, a low position. Humility will save us from a lot of trouble and land us onto the realm of peace in our lives.

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